Getting Ready for the 2019 Top 100 and ProAdvisor of the Year Awards

Insightful Accountant’s process for the Top 100 has changed very little since the day of inception. In fact, the most significant changes have taken place this year, and were published within the last few weeks.

Most people think that our Top 100 is simply one long list of 100 names out of the 800 or so nominees. But, the Top 100 actually consists of the top ProAdvisors within each of the categorical classifications we examine during this process. It represents the best of each category we recognize and our ProAdvisor of the Year represents the 'best of the best.'

Many of the questions within our formal applications are geared toward these categorical classifications. Additional questions within the applications impact individual standings within each category. Not all questions posed in the applications are related to all categories.

If you think about the process based upon the above, you should recognize how the various application questions, and criteria they reflect, drive the points in each category. To help you further prepare prior to our opening of the ‘formal applications’ early in 2019, I want to cover just some of the criteria we use in our awards process.

This should give you time to consider what you need to do, and prepare accordingly, between now and the actual application deadline should you wish to participate, and either self-nominate or ask someone to nominate you.

Individual NOT Firm Awards

Insightful Accountant’s ProAdvisor awards are designed to recognize individual ProAdvisors, they are not intended to recognize a ‘firm.’ We spend a lot of time ‘hashing and scoring’ the numbers you report in your application for these awards. Therefore, it is important for you to take time to reflect upon what makes up 'your own' ProAdvisor practice.

Even though you may be part of a big accounting firm, or a small bookkeeping practice, we are only concerned with the work YOU do, and the clients that you actually support. So, when we ask you about your clients, that is exactly what we mean, “your” clients. Do you know the exact number of clients for whom you ‘installed QuickBooks’ last year? How about the number of clients for whom you ‘reconciled their bank accounts’? What percentage of your clients are ‘in the construction business,’ or ‘healthcare?' How many, and what percentage, of ‘your clients’ are using QuickBooks Online in contrast to the number using one of the QuickBooks Desktop versions?

Each year we always have a few applicants who attempt to answer these questions on what can only be ‘firm wide’ numbers. What would you think about the validity of an individual’s application where they listed that they performed 3,500 QuickBooks Desktop installations in a single year? Makes you wonder if they reported all that income to the IRS too, doesn’t it?

There are more than 50 questions in our process that require answers based upon your practice, your work, your clients, and your services. For the vast majority, we ask you to select a range like ‘5 or fewer,’ or ’50-70%’ rather than asking you to give us ‘exact numerators.’ I can’t emphasize enough the importance of answering ‘all’ of these questions. In prior years, far too many applicants failed to provide answers to critical questions that not only ‘generate points’ relative to their overall score, but also are essential in determining each applicant’s categorization(s) toward awards.

Certifications

One of the single biggest factors in our scoring criteria is ‘certification’ within the Intuit Ecosystem. For our QuickBooks Desktop Category, it means the most current QuickBooks Desktop certification as well as QuickBooks Desktop-Advanced and QuickBooks Enterprise. For our QuickBooks Online Category, it means the most current QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Online-Advanced certifications. It isn’t enough just to ‘be certified’ you need to be ‘current’ in ALL certifications applicable. For more details about the revisions to the QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online categorical awards for 2019 see this Insightful Accountantarticle.

While a person’s certification ‘history’ comes into play, and those people with a long history of having been certified tend to rank higher, the reality is that each year we have high ranking historical certification participants drop several points because they haven’t yet completed the most recent certifications when they submit their applications.

For our ‘International Participants’ we recognize that QuickBooks Certification may not be available to you on a country-by-country basis, but where it is available you should consider it an absolute necessity in being considered for one of our International Awards. And, if ‘Advanced QBO Certification’ is being offered in your country you need to make certain you take advantage of that opportunity. For more details about our two new International awards see this Insightful Accountant article.

Trainings

Another significant factor in our scoring criteria is ‘training’ related to the Intuit Ecosystem. Staying current and keeping-up with what is going on in the industry and ecosystem are essential; if you are not participating in training events each year, you can not be doing that. We do not mandate a minimum number of hours in specific topics as a part of categorical award rankings; however, we recognize training related to the various areas of practice.

We also ‘value’ training as it relates to the various categories we recognize. So, training related to the QuickBooks Online ecosystem has higher value for ranking purposes within the QuickBooks Online Category than it does within the QuickBooks Desktop Category. Similarly, training related to the QuickBooks Desktop ecosystem has higher value for ranking purposes within the QuickBooks Desktop Category than it does within the QuickBooks Online Category.

Intuit offers a wealth of trainings for ProAdvisors, many of which can be found at this website and the various options available at that website.

Intuit is even offering a brand new live in-person QuickBooks 'training tour' that is starting in just a few weeks, you can find out about that in this Insightful Accountantarticle.

International participants should be aware that events like QuickBooks Connect are offered in not only the United States, but Canada, Europe and Australia. Those events provide significant opportunities to earn training points. Intuit also offers multiple training opportunities ranging from self-paced study, to webinar-based instruction, to virtual conferences, and live in-person training throughout the year. To help you find training in your country we have included a few official Intuit websites below (unfortunately we can not list every country or website).

All ProAdvisors can earn training points by attending events like Scaling New Heights, both live and their new ‘online version' (the online version can help you earn training credits right now before our 2019 Top 100 application deadline).

Other events like AccountEx (offered in both the USA and Europe), as well as participation in webinars that issue CPE credits like Insightful Accountant’s own QBTalks, or AccountingCred webinars, are also great sources for training credits to boost your standing for these awards.

Third-party Products

3rd-party Products matter in this process. We list hundreds of 3-party products that work with both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online. We will be removing some discontinued products this year from our list of the past and adding more than 200 new Apps to the full application form. We realize that this section of our application can be a very time-consuming part of the process, but we have no better way to evaluate the extent to which you assist your clients with solutions above and beyond QuickBooks. When you consider that the average QuickBooks Online user has from three to six Apps tied to QBO, these 3rd-party products are more important now than they were with QuickBooks Desktop.

We reward you with points earned for each response based upon the extent to which you are involved with each product. We value a ‘certification’ in a product higher than just being a ‘referral partner.’ We value an ‘authorized implementation’ partner for a desktop application higher than someone who ‘only uses the product.’

As of 2019, we are now issuing two categorical awards, a QuickBooks Desktop Implementation award and a QuickBooks Online Appologist award. You can count on the fact that our award winners' credentials have been ‘verified’ with the various 3rd-party product developers prior to our finalization of these awards, so don’t fudge your credentials. For more details about our two new categorical awards see this Insightful Accountant article.

Insightful Accountant recognizes that international candidates may not have access to every 3rd-party product (we list in our application) within their specific country because not all products, even cloud-based Apps, integrate with every ‘country's version’ of QuickBooks. But most ProAdvisors do have a ‘stack’ of Apps they use themselves, recommend to or help clients implement, even if those Apps don’t offer certification. Many such products also offer ‘partner programs’ for referrals or implementation, and we encourage you to continue to expand your participation within such programs.

Client Reviews

Another scoring factor involves the 'client reviews' that appear as part of a ProAdvisor’s (Find a Pro) profile. We factor the total number of reviews times the review score for each and then factor in the total number of clients reported to us in the formal application.

As an example, if a ProAdvisor has 110 rankings of an average of 4.8 points, and reported that they had 450 clients, then their ranking represents (approximately) 25% of the computed ranking score. Similarly, a ProAdvisor who only has 5 rankings of 4.8 but has only 20 clients, essentially earns the same ranking score. On the other hand, someone with 450 clients who only had 20 ratings of 4.8 would have a much lower raking then either of the previous two examples.

This approach is designed to provide an equalization in rankings between smaller practices including those within smaller geographic service areas in contrast with large practices located in large geographic areas. We are striving to prevent a ProAdvisor’s geo-location from overly influencing their standing as it relates to serving clients.

If you open your profile and recognize that you are ‘weak’ in this area, we suggest that you reach out to your clients and ask them to provide a review of your services using the Find a ProAdvisor website. You could be pleasantly rewarded with some great new reviews simply by asking.

In countries not yet offering 'client reviews' as part of their ProAdvisor recognition, a lack of such reviews will not adversely impact a ProAdvisor's ranking in regard to our International awards.

Our 2019 Awards

We will begin our nomination process at the start of December, that’s several weeks ahead of past years because we are anticipating a larger than ever number of participants, especially from the International sector as ProAdvisor status has grown substantially outside the USA over the past year.

Insightful Accountant will publish formal notifications of the ‘Nominations Are Now Open’ that includes the link to the official nomination form website. So be watching for that notification on December 3, 2018.

Please remember, while it is always ‘nice’ to have someone nominate you, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you nominating yourself. About 50% of our nominees are self-nominated each year.

Don’t get left out; as I say every year, “there is only one person you can absolutely count on to nominate you… that’s yourself.”

As we enter this new year of the awards I want to say, "best of luck to each and every one of you."